Saturday, August 6, 2016

Your feedback and comments are always appreciated. Happy to finish this project after so long. I hope to do a post mortem about this project and my share some insight into what my plans were for Warhammer content soon, as well as support Sartosa with free periodic "DLC" pages that add more quests and content.

Friday, December 25, 2015

I've posted the final content I made for the Small World board game as well as a reference sheet and printer friendly pack of all the races for those that asked. I have pages of notes for special powers but I think I'm done with the project and will be moving on.

Lepers
Lepers excel at holding their regions in isolation from other races. When playing as Lepers, seek to move away from the edge of the game board and establish a pocket of occupied regions.

Enemy racial or special powers that confer immunity to a region or that allow for ranged or indirect conquering such as the “Catapult” and “Flying” special powers or the racial power of Slingmen will be able to bridge the one region gap between your active tokens and an opponent, bypassing the protection of your racial power so be aware of the racial and special power combinations available at the time you pick Lepers. When going on the offensive, try to take over areas so that your set of regions remains isolated after conquering, as you’ll negate your own special power if you move into regions adjacent to another player’s active race. Finally, be aware that you can use your special power to create a bubble of protection around one of your previously declined races if you deploy next to one.

Catfolk
Catfolk have a kind of limited Flying as long as you control a Forest Region. They're great with an offensive power and best when taking out poorly defended enemy regions adjacent to Forests.

Sartosa Update

Pirate Princes of Sartosa not being available is entirely my bad. The project has been on the LAST SCENARIO for about three months. Unfortunately, circumstance and big changes in my personal life have gotten in the way of its completion. It's hard to work on creative endeavors when your mind is all over the place. I'm much better now and I think I'm good to finish up the campaign. There's some big shit I have to take care of in January but I'd really like to get it done so I'm going to push for it to happen. I'm super thankful for people's interest and super excited for people to actually get to play it. Also, it should be compatible with 9th age for those who have switched to it from 8th now that Warhammer Fantasy Battles is basically dead.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Pirate Princes of Sartosa is full of of custom content, rules, and systems to add a new dimension to smaller points Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition games without bogging down the action. Some of that content comes in the form of three unique lores of magic; the Lore of the Deeps, the Lore of the Southlands, and the one we're looking at today - the Lore of the Ages.

click to see Lore Attribute

The Lore of the Ages is based around the trope of the timeless and wise mystical ancient. A mage or even cosmic entity so powerful that time has become meaningless, and the stars are theirs to command.

In terms of Warhammer fantasy and a low-points campaign, we adapt that trope into a more grounded and less cosmically grandiose frame - the Time Mage. Fans of Final Fantasy are likely familiar with this job class. Spells from the Lore of the Ages, much like the abilities of the Time Mage (though we are not looking for 1:1 equivalents), can be disruptive, supportive, or highly destructive.

Click to see the Lore of the Ages spells

The Lore of the Ages builds around the thematic synergy between existing magic spells from the eight lores of battle magic in the Warhammer rulebook as it's framework. These are spells that feature temporal or cosmic elements. The second half of the lore consists of original spells that give us a strong feeling of a mage with the ability to alter time at will.

You will be able to recruit a Time Mage to your Warhammer warband or recover a tome to allow an existing Wizard in your army to select the Lore of the Ages when Warhammer: Pirate Princes of Sartosa becomes available later this month!

Sunday, September 20, 2015

The last few months have been spent working on and play testing the Pirate Princes of Sartosa warbands campaign for Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition. As it stands, I'm nearing the finish line, but I want to put out the best first version possible so my estimate for release is mid-October 2015! (If you're reading this blog post after that date, chances are you can download the campaign in full on the sidebar!). I've been meaning to give some insight into the way quests will work in the campaign so here we go!

There are 13 quests in the initial campaign pack of Pirate Princes of Sartosa (more may be released periodically after the campaign is available). Quests are picked up from Points of Interest on the map of Sartosa once per campaign turn, before you have your turn's campaign battle.

Once you have picked up a quest from a Point of Interest, it's time to see what it's all about! For this example, let's check out what you'll be seeing when you stop off at the city of Ragil, and pay a visit to a strange doctor named Tristan...

click to expand quest

Requirements

Once you've read the quest, you will note that it will list requirements for completion. These are marked as any combination of Minor and Major. These denominations serve only to approximate the difficulty of the task needed for completion of the requirement, but all requirements must be completed in order to turn the quest in.

Some quests ask for multiple instances of a requirement to be completed, in this case, four of Tristan's Missing Grail Relics. The final requirement of a quest will list the manner in which the quest may be turned in. Sometimes you may have to go back to the point of interest where you picked up the quest initially, other times, you may be able to turn in a quest after completing the requirements no matter which map tile your warband is currently on. Once you have turned a quest in, you will claim it's rewards.

Completing a quest will reward you with any mix of special items, currency, or a special campaign character for your warband. You will also note that every quest awards Marks of Piracy. More of these are awarded depending on the difficulty of the quest, and are important for the final outcome of the campaign.

Tristan, Bretonnian Plague Doctor

Tristan is a challenging character to recruit, but once you do, he will really add value to your warband, especially if your opponents have chosen to invest in magic and you have not.

click to expand special character. art by niconoff

The plague doctor was designed as an anti-magic tank, with his Magic Resistance(3) and adding a die to your dispel pool, as well as specialized but powerful bound spells, he excels in an army that does not need it's magic phase to win or swing the game, or against armies with an overwhelming amount of Magic attacks. Tristan's buff spells are significant, but come with a potentially equally significant drawback. Still, if you can avoid getting into situations where that spell's specific drawback would really hinder you, then ultimately, you've come out entirely ahead.

Thanks for checking out this Special Campaign Character! I can't wait for you to check out the others when Pirate Princes of Sartosa becomes available!

Sunday, July 19, 2015

I realized I never posted final pictures of what the jungle terrain revamped gaming table ended up looking like, so here's several pictures taken before a recent Pirate Princes of Sartosa test game.

Can you spot the kitty?

View from above

You can read more about the history of the project, and see closeups of the terrain pieces here. I still want to make a post detailing my experience in making a gaming table, but I don't have any pictures of any of the steps and pitfalls that I encountered in my trial and error. Either way, it might still be worth it to help anyone who is starting out on this type of project. For now, have a wonderful day and enjoy a nice cocktail, Lustria style -

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Check out the final Pirate Princes of Sartosa campaign map, which will be in the book as a two-page spread!

I'm now shooting for a final PDF of version 1.0 to be available before October. I've been making great strides with the remainder of the writing lately, which has been super fun. I started a new job recently and fully expected my progress on Sartosa to slow to a crawl, but with the release of Age of Sigmar, I'm more fired up than ever to finish the campaign.

Age of Sigmar is, for me, a very disappointing development for many reasons. I won't add to the internet chatter with a rant of my own, but I will say that I will be continuing to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th edition and will not be playing Age of Sigmar or make Age of Sigmar content.

With this commitment to 8th edition, I really want to get the campaign finished as soon as possible so that others who are sticking with 8th can have new content and a fun campaign to get their friends into the hobby or campaigning, which has always been the aim of my Warhammer Fantasy content efforts, so business as usual.

Now, back to the map. If you're curious about how the campaign will work, players will move their warbands around the map, on land and by sea, and explore points of interest. The points of interest are marked on the map with numbers (1-15). Two of these are Special Campaign Character shops (1, 4) where you will be able to hire unique lord-level heroes using campaign currency.

The remaining points of interest contain quests that reward you with a Character Slot Item (using the same system as Conquest of Lustria), or a Special Campaign Character when completed. That's it for now! I will make a post showing how quests work sometime soon.

I also want to thank all the people who have sent me email messages. These are always super cool to get and the questions and anticipation for Sartosa have really encouraged me to continue working on the campaign so thank you!